Deepwater Horizon alarm gave no advance warning of explosion, rig crew member says

The rig crew member in charge of monitoring danger alarms on the Deepwater Horizon testified Tuesday that the rig's general alarm didn't sound until after the first explosion rocked the rig April 20.

View full sizeBrett Duke, The Times-PicayuneYancy Keplinger, of Transocean, is overcome with emotion as he testifies during the Deepwater Horizon joint investigation hearings Tuesday in Metairie.

Yancy Keplinger, who controlled the Transocean rig's computer-based navigation system, said he saw mud spraying out of a line over the edge of the rig before any gas detectors went off. He was testifying before the Deepwater Horizon joint investigation into the explosion that killed 11 crew members and spilled hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Asked whether he would have expected an alarm to sound when the mud shot out, Keplinger said,

"Yes ... because the only thing that could come up from the hole is either gas or oil." He also said that gas detectors should have signaled before the explosion, but didn't. Those detectors are designed to trigger an emergency shut-down system to suck oxygen away from ignition sources, which also didn't happen.

A few moments later, Keplinger's colleague, Andrea Fleytas, got a call from the drill floor saying that they were fighting to control oil and gas in the well and an explosion rang out that made it clear that gas had shot up to the rig and ignited on board.

Only after a second explosion did Keplinger start "to receive gas alarms on the fire and gas system," he said, his voice cracking from the intensity of recalling the harrowing experience. "I started to pull up the fire and gas (monitors) in the shell shakers. I noticed a lot of gas in there and called the shell shakers. I wanted to get the person or persons out of there. I didn't get no response."

Over the course of the last five months, Marine Board investigators have heard testimony that key alarms and safety systems were inhibited, a status in which they recorded dangers by computer, but wouldn't sound. Keplinger said he wasn't aware of that, but that the rig's general alarm was set for manual control on the bridge.

It wouldn't be triggered automatically by multiple zone alarms going off, he said.

A technician on the rig, Mike Williams, testified previously that he'd been told rig leaders didn't want the general alarm going off falsely in the middle of the night.

Part of Keplinger and Fleytas' duties was to monitor indicators of gas detectors and alarms from the bridge. Keplinger was busy showing visiting BP and Transocean officials a video-game-style simulator for 45 minutes to an hour before the explosions, he said, but he insisted that Fleytas was keeping him abreast of readouts of the rig's systems.

Keplinger flashed some anger at Capt. Curt Kuchta, captain of the Deepwater Horizon rig, during his testimony. He noted that a fellow rig worker, Chris Pleasant, had to ask Kuchta three times whether to disconnect the rig from the wellhead before he got the go-ahead.

Then Keplinger described the scene as he and the captain helped lower people on a life raft.

"Before it went down it was just me and the captain up there. He told a person not to worry about him and the life raft went down. So, I was kind of disgusted. I wanted to get in the life raft. I had no choice but to jump," said Keplinger, who at that point required a break in his testimony to regain his composure.

Keplinger later said Kuchta told a group of crew members who looked to him for guidance during the evacuation, "I don't know about you, but I'm going to jump."

"I would have expected more from a person of that caliber, that position," Keplinger testified.

Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen asked Keplinger if he thought Kuchta should have stayed behind at the scene 50 miles off the Louisiana coast while there was an active search and rescue operation for 11 missing rig workers.

View full sizeGerald Herbert, The Associated PressKyle Schonekas, attorney for Deepwater Horizon oil rig captain Curt Kuchta, objects to what he argued was a lack of impartiality by Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen. October 5 2010

"This is part of Capt. Nguyen's repeated efforts to character assassinate my client," Schonekas said. "I further move that Capt. Nguyen recuse himself because it exhibits his bias against Capt. Kuchta."

Nguyen said he was simply trying to establish a record of what he called the "safety culture" on the Deepwater Horizon. Schonekas said he'd been tracking Nguyen's comments about Kuchta and could show a pattern of bias.

Nguyen has focused on the management structure on the rig and has said it seemed nobody was in charge amid the emergency situation. The Transocean policy is that a rig is run by its captain when it's making way, but the top drilling official, the offshore installation manager, is in control when the rig is latched onto a well. Nguyen is wont to point out that the explosion of the well made it difficult to determine when control had been tacitly transferred from the OIM back to Kuchta.